But no deal was consummated before President George W. Bush took office, and Mr. Bush initiated his own policy review. The disclosure that North Korea was developing a capability to enrich uranium led the Bush administration to conclude that the Agreed Framework was not worth upholding, and construction on the new reactors was suspended.
At the end of 2002, North Korea expelled inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, restarted its nuclear facilities and announced it was withdrawing from the nonproliferation treaty. The Agreed Framework was dead.
From then on, negotiations occurred within a framework of six parties: North Korea, the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan. Those talks, led on the American side by Christopher R. Hill, went on fitfully from 2002 to 2005, when North Korea promised to “abandon nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.”
After years of haggling over how to verify the North Korean pledge, the six-party talks broke down in 2009, leaving President Barack Obama to deal with a North Korea that had made progress in its nuclear program and remained opaque and suspicious of the outside world.
The Obama administration showed little appetite for reviving the Six-Party process, and instead embarked on a policy of steadily tightening economic pressure on North Korea. But American diplomats began quietly meeting with their North Korean counterparts.
On Feb. 29, 2012, the two sides announced a deal — the so-called Leap Day Agreement — under which North Korea would halt operations at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and allow in inspectors to verify its suspension of nuclear and missile testing. In return, the United States pledged to offer food aid to North Korea.
Within a month North Korea was threatening to launch a satellite, effectively nullifying the deal.
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